By Gordon McCraw, Meteorologist for the Tillamook County Pioneer
This morning there was a well defined low pressure area spinning about 500 miles west of the Washington coast with an associated front that was approaching the Oregon coast. The warm frontal portion was bringing periods of light to moderate rain that by 8:00am had given area of Tillamook between 1/3” to almost an inch of rain with more expected. As the cold front pushes across later this morning, it is expected to bring periods of heavy rain and gusty winds. The area transitioned to showers with possible thunderstorms behind the front that persist through tonight, the winds southerly 10-15 gusting to 25, overnight lows near 41, which is a change from this mornings 5:00am temperature of 50 degrees.
That low pressure area in the Pacific continues to drift towards the Oregon/Washington coast tomorrow so we can expect more showers with possible thunderstorms with breezy southerly winds 14-18 gusting to 30, highs near 50. More of the same tomorrow night, showers with possible thunderstorms, southerly winds 10-15 gusting to 30, lows near 42.
With the low pressure area now moving south along the coast towards northern California, conditions slowly improve during the day Friday, though we are still looking at some scattered showers, the winds now southerly 5-10 gusting to 18, highs near 56. By Friday night that low has weakened and is off the coast of California as a high pressure ridge builds into our area from the northwest. This will bring mostly clear skies for Friday night with light winds, the low near 40.
The high pressure ridge will bring a fair, dry, and mild weekend to the area with sunny skies Saturday and Sunday, afternoon highs near 59, then partly cloudy nights, lows near 40.
After that the models are a little mixed, some keep the ridge in place through Tuesday, some of the others start breaking it down sooner. Given this, we go with mostly sunny skies Monday with partly sunny skies with a chance of showers for Tuesday, highs still around 60, lows near 43.
